"Jerky" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... instant, the one to free his arm, the other to retain his grip. Bellamy spurred his horse closer. The more powerful of the two, he slowly twisted around the imprisoned wrist. Inch by inch the revolver swung in a jerky, spasmodic circle. There was a moment when it pointed directly at the mine owner's heart. His enemy's finger crooked on the trigger, eyes passionate with the stark lust to kill. But the pressure on the wrist had numbed the hand. The weapon ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... is left. With a despairing sigh she turns the great faucet of the bath-tub and holds her head under it till she is upon the verge of a watery grave. This experiment is her forlorn hope. Perhaps about three or four o'clock she falls into a series of jerky naps, and dreams that she is editor of a popular Hebrew magazine, wandering frantically through a warehouse full of aspirant MSS. (chiefly from the junior classes of theological seminaries) of which she ...
— Men, Women, and Ghosts • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... heard nothing except "I think you should consult me," but our quick children's eyes apprehended the meaning of the scene. Krak was being bearded. There was no doubt of it; for presently Krak bowed her head in a jerky unwilling nod and walked out of the room. My mother stood still for a moment with a vivid red colour in her cheeks. Then she walked across to Victoria, lifted one of her hands from the ...
— The King's Mirror • Anthony Hope
... from a mass of somewhat jerky, contradictory information, had gleaned that the new leading part at the London theatre had been gained through the middle-aged bridegroom's influence, ...
— Winding Paths • Gertrude Page
... runs a certain risk of falling into evil ways. The risk is multiplied by every addition to the population up to twelve- -the Jury-number. After that, fear and consequent restraint begin, and human action becomes less grotesquely jerky. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... tourists of various nations, including some voluble Swedes and a company of dapper Japanese gentlemen, who were seeing Europe. After much pushing, crowding, shouting, and gesticulation on the part of both the public and officials, the train at last started and pursued its jolting and jerky way. It ran first through the poorer district of Naples, where dilapidated houses, whose faded walls showed traces of former gay pink, blue, or yellow color-wash, stood in the midst of vegetable gardens; then, the slums left behind, the line passed a long ...
— The Jolliest School of All • Angela Brazil
... woman has sat down in the full light. She is eating, with bent back, lowered head and jerky, nervous movements, while her wicked little sunken eyes peer from under her heavy, matted brows. She speaks some curt words in patois, too fast for me to catch their sense; but her strident voice hurts my ears. The conversation becomes livelier by degrees and soon ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc
... front of him. So close was the pack that the motion resembled the writhing of some prehistoric monster rather than the movements of individual human beings. In that half-light tossing arms and legs looked like tentacles flung out in agony by the mammoth reptile. Its progress was jerky and convulsive, sometimes tortuous, but it traveled slowly toward the rail as if by the impulsion ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... towards the stair-head. The passage was empty and ended in utter darkness. I glanced the other way, and thought I saw—though not distinctly—in the distance a white figure, not gliding in the conventional way, but limping off, with a sort of jerky motion, and, in a second or ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... and ask the operator to get it in the hands of the chief of police without an instant's loss of time," directed Mr. Seaton, speaking in jerky haste. ...
— The Motor Boat Club and The Wireless - The Dot, Dash and Dare Cruise • H. Irving Hancock
... Jacobs's bunk. Some time before, he had rigged up a pair of curtains, cut out of an old sack, to keep off the draught. These, some one had drawn, so that I had to pull them aside to see him. He was lying on his back, breathing in a queer, jerky fashion. I could not see his face, plainly; but it seemed rather pale, in ...
— The Ghost Pirates • William Hope Hodgson
... neighbors, and I like chickens; but I do not think they ought to be united near a garden. Neighbors' hens in your garden are an annoyance. Even if they did not scratch up the corn, and peck the strawberries, and eat the tomatoes, it is not pleasant to see them straddling about in their jerky, high-stepping, speculative manner, picking inquisitively here and there. It is of no use to tell the neighbor that his hens eat your tomatoes: it makes no impression on him, for the tomatoes are not ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... largeness of his mind; but in small matters he suffered from the lack of any logical test and ready reckoner. Hence his comment upon the details of civilisation or reform are sometimes apt to be jerky and jarring, and even grossly inconsistent. So long as a thing was heroic enough to admire, Dickens admired it; whenever it was absurd enough to laugh at he laughed at it: so far he was on sure ground. But about ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... finish by barber and manicurist; but his colour was peculiar, being almost unhumanly florid, and, as Mrs. Schofield afterward claimed to have noticed, his eyes "wore a nervous, apprehensive look", his hands were tremulous, and his manner was "queer and jerky"—at least, that is how she ...
— Penrod and Sam • Booth Tarkington
... magnificent team of four pairs of young oxen, through whose somber coats glanced a ruddy, glow-like name. They had the short, curry heads that belong to the wild bull, the same large, fierce eyes and jerky movements; they worked in an abrupt, nervous way that showed how they still rebelled against the yoke and goad, and trembled with anger as they obeyed the authority so recently imposed. They were what is called "newly yoked" oxen. The man who drove them had to clear a corner ...
— The Devil's Pool • George Sand
... an idea of the jerky style of the lady's singing which so tickled our sensitive ears. At every repetition of the refrain, Susy and I squeezed our locked fingers spasmodically in order to suppress the unseemly laughter bubbling to our lips. At every emphatic word she nodded at us merrily, thus ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885 • Various
... wouldn't want THAT to happen!" exclaimed the Clown, as he brought his queer, jerky dance to an end. "If you'd rather, I ...
— The Story of Calico Clown • Laura Lee Hope
... emphasized the quiet. And, with every moment that went by, the lit-up tower had seemed more like a symbol to Dion. Then at last the cuckoo-clock had chimed and the wooden bird, with trembling tail, had made its jerky obeisance. ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... to be done. They couldn't go on like this.... Her mind went to and fro, quickly, with short jerky movements, distressed; it had to do so much thinking ...
— The Romantic • May Sinclair
... artless manner. But then every one shouted across blocks, and besides, every one knew that Afternoon Tea Willie just dearly loved to be yelled at. He whirled about now, waved his hat, and came hurrying back, with the peculiar jerky irregular motion of his feet, that always marked ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... the comfortable little sitting-room of the suite, a young woman rose gracefully from the desk at which she had been writing. With perfect composure she smiled and extended her slim hand to the American as he crossed the room with Medcroft's jerky introduction dinging ...
— The Husbands of Edith • George Barr McCutcheon
... itself—You must picture me, when first it was given into my care, turning it over, curiously, and making a swift, jerky examination. A small book it is; but thick, and all, save the last few pages, filled with a quaint but legible handwriting, and writ very close. I have the queer, faint, pit-water smell of it in my nostrils now as I write, and my fingers have subconscious memories of the soft, "cloggy" ...
— The House on the Borderland • William Hope Hodgson
... a woman given to jerky conversations, interspersed with exclamation points. Her poise and balance had become a proverb in the business world. Yet her lips were trembling now. Her eyes were very round and bright. Her face had flushed, ...
— Personality Plus - Some Experiences of Emma McChesney and Her Son, Jock • Edna Ferber
... across the table in silence. The room seemed to her to have grown very still. She could hear the flies buzzing on the panes, the soft purr of the wind about the low eaves and through the apple boughs, the jerky beating of her own heart. She felt frightened and ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... their moments of depression. R. Jones' face clouded, and jerky remarks about hardness of times and losses on the Stock Exchange began to proceed from him. As Scotland Yard had discovered, he lent money on occasion; but he did not lend it to youths in ...
— Something New • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... this place alone; it's getting too big for you; too much money circulating through The Polka. You need a man behind you." All this was said in short, jerky sentences; moreover, when she placed his change in front of him he pushed ...
— The Girl of the Golden West • David Belasco
... the retired terror of the mountains for a long time. The only fly in the ointment of his content was Jerky Johnson, who kept dogs and went pirooting around the hills with a gun, making much noise and scaring the wits out of coyotes and jack rabbits. Old Clubfoot realized that his eyes were dimming and his hearing becoming impaired, and it annoyed ...
— Bears I Have Met—and Others • Allen Kelly
... Jerky, little by little, Wilfred sketches out the answer. Army life wasn't what he'd expected. Not at all. He was sore on the whole business. He'd been let in for it, that was all. It wasn't so bad for some of the fellows, but they'd been lucky. As for him—well, he'd come here to learn to be an ...
— The House of Torchy • Sewell Ford
... predecessor. The connection and relation of the sub-incidents is not always as close as this. In a longer story they could be more distinct and definite and yet preserve the unity of the work; but they should never disintegrate into minor climaxes,[37] nor into such a jerky succession of disassociated scenes ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... the reins, with a yell of pain, and they fell into the dust and dragged. The horse broke into a bunchy, jerky gallop, and lunged down the hill, the big van swaying wildly with an ominous rattling and crashing ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... mar the even life of the young adventurers left behind. This was the tenor of the message, but there was something about it that worried Frank. Lathrop, he knew, was an expert wireless operator, but the sending that he performed that morning was so jerky and irregular that the rankest amateur ...
— The Boy Aviators in Africa • Captain Wilbur Lawton
... something about machinery," admitted Russ. "It is something new to go on moving picture machines, to steady the film as it moves behind the lens. You've often noticed how jerky the pictures are ...
— The Moving Picture Girls - First Appearances in Photo Dramas • Laura Lee Hope
... go out so little, you know—but Jerry and the Colonel thought I ought, you know—and now I've really enjoyed it—and if Miss Marshall will come, Jerry and the Colonel will be quite satisfied. And so, of course, will I." With which rather jerky valedictory she finally got herself out ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... coming through," replied the other without moving, "but in the same jerky fashion. Every time I get it, it seems to have gone back to the beginning—just ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... that, idiot?" said the boy in a jerky voice, and, bending almost double, darted down ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... Elizabeth Eliza, "but it would be less dangerous to keep the cow in the lot behind the house, because she would not be coming and going, morning and night, in that jerky way the Larkins' cows come home. They don't mind which gate they rush in at. I should hate to have our cow dash into our front yard just as I was coming ...
— The Peterkin Papers • Lucretia P Hale
... Her method was a bit jerky, perhaps, and lacked grace; but she was going straight down the stretch to the "home" stake, and before they had covered half the distance Nancy passed Carrie, ...
— A Little Miss Nobody - Or, With the Girls of Pinewood Hall • Amy Bell Marlowe
... cat-tails in the river marshes an alert, nervous little brown bird rises startled from the rushes and tries to elude you as with short, jerky flight it goes deeper and deeper into the marsh, where even the rubber boot may not follow. It closely resembles two other birds found in such a place, the swamp sparrow and the short-billed marsh wren; but you may know by its long, slender ...
— Bird Neighbors • Neltje Blanchan
... a new story. He knocked the ashes from his cigar and threw out his arms with one of his odd, jerky gestures. ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... Silas Foster plied his rake manfully, poking it as far as he could into the water, and immersing the whole length of his arm besides. Hollingsworth at first sat motionless, with the hooked pole elevated in the air. But, by and by, with a nervous and jerky movement, he began to plunge it into the blackness that upbore us, setting his teeth, and making precisely such thrusts, methought, as if he were stabbing at a deadly enemy. I bent over the side of the boat. So obscure, ...
— The Blithedale Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... perfectly steady and natural in its tones; all his restless, jerky movements had ceased. Outwardly he seemed to be completely master of himself. But of a truth the aspect of the madman now was more terrible than before. His sallow cheeks were the colour of lead, his pale eyes had narrowed down till they were mere slits through which gleams ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... included four Heavies besides the flagship, with twelve Mediums and twenty Lights. They slanted down in a jerky evasive course while pictures flashed on screens to be ...
— Tulan • Carroll Mather Capps
... to himself in a rambling sort of way. Sometimes he would try to justify himself for highgrading in jerky half-coherent phrases, sometimes he argued with Peale that he had better let him out. But even in his delirious condition he stuck to his work in the tunnel, though he was scarce able ...
— The Highgrader • William MacLeod Raine
... soaped, rolled and brushed up into that approved tonsorial ornament known in barrack-room parlance as a "quiff." His complexion was of that peculiar olive-brown shade especially noticeable in most Anglo-Indians. In his smart, soldierly aspect, biting, jerky Cockney speech and clipped, wax-pointed moustache he ...
— The Luck of the Mounted - A Tale of the Royal Northwest Mounted Police • Ralph S. Kendall
... or correcting, judgment of Mr. E. DROOD, I make bold to guess that the modern true lover's mind, such as it is, is rendered jerky by contemplation of the lady who has made him the object of her virgin affectations," proceeded Mr. DIBBLE, looking intently at EDWIN, but still making farther and farther reaches toward the distant crackers, even to the increased tilting of his chair. "I venture ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... are not, or I should not have dreamed of asking you to help me to-night," Katherine said, with a nervous laugh; then in a jerky tone she went on: "I want you to get the store shut up as soon as possible, then, directly the people have cleared off, we have got to go and bring those stores home that ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... chased by a motor-car. It darted in at the open door of the lodge; the pursuers pulled up outside. There were paraffin lamps in the windows, the open door was garlanded with evergreens; from it proceeded loud and hilarious voices and the jerky strains of a concertina. Mrs. Alexander, with all, her most cherished convictions toppling on their pedestals, stood in the open doorway and stared, unable to believe the testimony of her own eyes. Was that the immaculate Barnet seated at the head of a crowded table, in her—Mrs. Alexander's—very ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... yielded. He said a few sentences, supposed to be Howard teaching, in a rather soft voice, with what seemed to Howard a horribly affected and priggish emphasis. But the matter displeased him still more. It was facetious, almost jocose; and there was a jerky attempt at academic humour in it, which seemed to him particularly nauseous, as of a well-informed and quite superior person condescending to the mildest of witticisms, to put himself on a level with juvenile minds. Howard had thought himself both unaffected and elastic in his ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... second day out, the wind began to fail us, and by eight o'clock it had fallen to a stark, glassy calm. There had been but a moderate amount of sea running, and this soon went down, leaving only a long, oily swell, upon which the ship rolled with a quick, jerky, uneasy movement. The sun rose clear and brilliant, with every promise of a fine and scorchingly hot day; but when I went on deck after breakfast to take my sights for the longitude, I noticed that the sky had lost much of its brilliant colouring, while the sun hung in it a white, ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... second that that thing was a Rebel flag. It was not more than sixty yards to the right. The smoke around it was low and dense and kept me from seeing the man who was carrying it, but I plainly saw the banner. It was going fast, with a jerky motion, which told me that the bearer was on a double-quick. About that time we left. We observed no kind of order in leaving; the main thing was to get out of there as quick as we could. I ran down our company street, and in passing the big Sibley tent of our mess I thought of my knapsack ...
— The Story of a Common Soldier of Army Life in the Civil War, 1861-1865 • Leander Stillwell
... dozing peacefully for several hours. Even Pepperill could not avoid a decorous smile. Then the clerk pulled out the copy of Al-Hoda and rustled it, and His Honor, who had been dreaming that he was riding through the narrow streets of Bagdad upon a jerky white dromedary so tall that he could peek through the latticed balconies at the plump, black-eyed odalisques within the harems, slowly came back from Turkey ...
— By Advice of Counsel • Arthur Train
... closely without appearing to do so. He saw Barker flush slightly, and did not miss the jerky nervousness of his answer—that or the ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... was Miss Magen whose faith in the purpose of the struggling world inspired Una. Una walked with her up Madison Avenue, past huge old brownstone mansions, and she was unconscious of suiting her own quick step to Miss Magen's jerky lameness as the Jewess talked of her ideals of a business world which should have generosity and chivalry and the accuracy of a biological laboratory; in which there would be no need of charity to employee.... Or ...
— The Job - An American Novel • Sinclair Lewis
... Bobby kept his eyes in mild speculation, while he leisurely laid aside his cane and removed his gloves and coat and hat; next he sat down in his father's jerky old swivel chair and lit a cigarette; then he opened the ...
— The Making of Bobby Burnit - Being a Record of the Adventures of a Live American Young Man • George Randolph Chester
... Roberts, "ye know nothin' of love, Mister Bobo, an' ye never will. I'm sorry for ye, too. Life without love is like eatin' bull-beef jerky without salsa!" ...
— Bunch Grass - A Chronicle of Life on a Cattle Ranch • Horace Annesley Vachell
... him to bite his lips to bleeding-point, to keep back his groans, Frobisher contrived to raise himself to a sitting posture, and he then discovered that he was in a closed litter of some sort, or palanquin, which, he could tell by its short, jerky motion, was being borne over very ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... laboriously, as if he were placing himself under a tremendous obligation to her, by making her go to so much trouble; and, after assuring the others that she would not be long, followed Denis with that jerky mutinous gait in which each footfall is an angry stamp;—it is characteristic of women all the world over, when they are induced to do something of which they disapprove. For she was wondering where Lord Henry could be, and feared ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... apprentices promptly obeyed the command given to them, and were ushered into the presence of their infuriated captain. They were each handsome, broad-shouldered athletes, with keen, sparkling, fearless eyes that indicated fearlessness. He made a short, jerky, almost inarticulate speech on the wickedness and indecency of committing an act of gross disrespect to the vessel, the owner and himself, all of whom should have been shielded ...
— The Shellback's Progress - In the Nineteenth Century • Walter Runciman
... every morning disappearing through the front gates at about eleven o'clock; very shiny top hat; very tight tail coat; very tight grey trousers; very tight yellow gloves; very tight grey-yellow moustache; very tight pasty face; curiously constricted, jerky gait as though his boots, too, were very tight. Precisely the sort of chronic, half-tipsy hanger-on one used to see in billiard rooms or eating cloves in West End bars. By association of ideas with the orientalism of Sultana he was called by the ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... had invited her to be present that evening at the opening of Newbern's new and gorgeous restaurant, where the diners, between courses and until late after dinner, would dance to the strains of exotic and jerky music, precisely as they did in ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... for her because they happened to be born on the same day of the month. And then he played the fiddle until almost one o'clock. He played all the simple, sweet, old-time pieces, in rather a squeaky, jerky way, I am afraid, but the music suited the time and ...
— Letters of a Woman Homesteader • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... jerky, strained voice he told of his mailing a letter, from a village within a short distance of Bug Hollow, to a girl friend of his on the afternoon of the night of the robbery. He swore positively that this letter was in this same mail-bag, because he had handed ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... about fifty-five, had the air of one born in the grandfather class. Lockyer the son dyed his hair and affected jauntiness, but was in fact not many years younger than Benchley and had the stiffening jerky legs of one paying for a lively youth. Norman was thirty-seven—at the age the Greeks extolled as divine because it means all the best of youth combined with all the best of manhood. Some people thought Norman younger, almost boyish. Those knew him uptown only, where ...
— The Grain Of Dust - A Novel • David Graham Phillips
... With a quick, jerky movement of the head, which set in motion the little rings of hair, now growing so fast, and brought his brother to his ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... panted Bunny, in a sort of jerky way, for the cart rattled over some bumps just then, and if Bunny had not been careful how he spoke he might have bitten his tongue between ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue at Aunt Lu's City Home • Laura Lee Hope
... really all, except that he was staying at the Parador de las Diligencias, and would call in a week's time. He left his card—Mr. Osmund Manvers, Filcote Hall, Taunton; Oxford and Cambridge Club—elegantly engraved. And then he departed, with a jerky salute to Don Luis, grave ...
— The Spanish Jade • Maurice Hewlett
... unpleasant business," he said, in a jerky, self-conscious voice. "I didn't know that I was that sort of fellow. The temptation was very great. I nearly gave in and let him do it. He was a stronger man than I. You know—we did not get on well together. He always hoped that I would turn out a literary ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... this jerky letter. Soon I shall proceed to make my contention good. I shall show the higher part intellect plays in conjugal love, the control, restraint, forbearance, sacrifice. And I shall show that conjugal love is higher and ...
— The Kempton-Wace Letters • Jack London
... Maine woods. Now he was foreman of an East River lumber-yard, and he was prospering. In a year or two he would have enough laid by to go home to Bucksport and buy a share in a ship-building business. All this dribbled out in the course of a jerky but variegated correspondence, in which autobiographic details were mixed with reflections moral ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... finished his jerky sentences, pointed to an eminence which was two or three hundred yards from where they stood, and a like distance from the wall ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... of the quality of the human mind, with its every-day, jerky reasoning powers and its submerged, smooth intuitions, finds its strongest ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... playing with her scarf, twisting it and pulling it to pieces, with jerky, impatient movements that seemed to tell of inward dissatisfaction ...
— The Thirteen • Honore de Balzac
... a vague consciousness of the connection between the various singsongs and their respective performers. I would be aware that the bass voice with the flourishes in front of me belonged to the stuttering widower from Vitebsk, that the squeaky, jerky intonation to the right came from the red-headed fellow whom I loathed for his thick lips, or that the sweet, unassertive cadences that came floating from the east wall were being uttered by Reb Rachmiel, the "man of acumen" whose father-in-law had made a fortune as a war-contractor in the late ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... normally retained by sustaining the activity of the diaphragm, that is, its eccentric contraction. However, the body needs occasionally the complete surrender of muscles, but this should not be too sudden or jerky. The gradual surrender brings greater control and the higher ...
— How to Add Ten Years to your Life and to Double Its Satisfactions • S. S. Curry
... with a jerky motion and downed the contents; the chaser stood disregarded before him and O'Brien regarded his patron with an ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... scream with the immensity of the sound. Luminous, white disks, three feet in diameter, glared at him, and the creature, which progressed with jerky leaps toward him, almost filled the ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... standing up with one hand grasping the edge of the bookshelf and the other holding open before his face a thick volume. The lamp wriggled in the gimbals, the loosened books toppled from side to side on the shelf, the long barometer swung in jerky circles, the table altered its slant every moment. In the midst of all this stir and movement Captain MacWhirr, holding on, showed his eyes above the upper edge, and ...
— Typhoon • Joseph Conrad
... and looked at, each. Case had small but marked features—was too light, but his eyes redeemed his face; and his features improved on acquaintance. Ransom was twenty-seven or twenty-eight, of heavy build, dark, and with a quick, sharp eye, and jerky positive way. Kennedy was sandy—hair, face, eyebrows ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... motorman ran the car, and the jerky way in which he stopped and started it, did not bother Nan Sherwood much, for she was not nervous. Miss March, however, began to stare ahead apprehensively, and the way in which she twisted her pocket-handkerchief in her ...
— Nan Sherwood at Rose Ranch • Annie Roe Carr
... passed, drawn by a jerky-paced nag, with two men seated side by side shaking like jelly, and a woman behind, who clung to the side of the vehicle to ...
— Short-Stories • Various
... an ill turn if he can, by throwing doubts before these same tenants whether they should pay or not before Moll's succession is made sure. And I have good reason to fear they will not, for I observed yesterday when I called upon Farmer Giles to invite him to our feast, he seemed very jerky and ill at ease, which perplexed me greatly, until, on quitting, I perceived through a door that stood ajar old Simon seated in a side room. And 'tis but natural that if they find prudent excuse for withholding their rents they will keep their money in pocket, which will pinch us ...
— A Set of Rogues • Frank Barrett
... Bothwell opened the pavilion door with a false key, and, having groped his way up the stairs; he went to listen at Darnley's door. Darnley, hearing no further noise, had ended by going to sleep; but he slept with a jerky breathing which pointed to his agitation. Little mattered it to Bothwell what kind of sleep it was, provided that he was really in his room. He went down again in silence, then, as he had come up, and taking a lantern from one of the conspirators, he went himself into the lower ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... a little bare room with the floor covered with straw. Two telegraph operators are making that infernal jerky clicking sound I have begun so to hate. Half a dozen men of the signal staff are lying about the floor looking at week-old papers. In the next room I can hear the general, seated at a table and intent on his map, talking to an officer that has just come ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... her like a cat, or she'll get away from you. When she fights strong and the tiller slips a little, in a jerky, greasy sort of way, let up on her a trifle; it is the way she tells you at night that the water is too shoal; but keep edging her up, little by little, toward the point. You are well up on the bar, now; there is a bar under every point, because the water that comes down around it forms an eddy ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... barely put the query before John Ward stalked through the fort door and stood at Dale's elbow. Speaking slowly and stressing his words in that jerky fashion that marks an Indian's ...
— A Virginia Scout • Hugh Pendexter
... said in his jerky way. "Good employer—model to follow—great man. Watch him, mark him, imitate him—that's the way to get on. Can't go wrong," and he trotted down the street in search of fresh contributions towards ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... deep gulping sigh of relief, flashed across the room on tiptoe, and went down on his knees beside the monstrous thing, moving the candle this way and that along the length of it, as if searching for something, and laughing in little jerky gasps of relief when he found nothing that was not as it had been—as it should be—as he wanted it to be. And then, as he rose and patted the clay, and laughed aloud as he realised how hard it had set, then, at that instant, a white shape ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... voice is silent; but in speaking and singing both inspiration and expiration have to be regulated according to the nature of the phrases to be spoken or sung. If the speaker does not know how to take breath and how to control the expiration, his delivery will of necessity be jerky and uncertain. But in the singer it is even more important that he should be able to fill his lungs well, and, having done this, to have absolute command over his expiration; because while the speaker can arrange his sentences, his speed, and his breathing-places very much ...
— The Mechanism of the Human Voice • Emil Behnke
... mason-wasps, that flew about loudly buzzing in their splendid gold and scarlet uniform. There were also many little shy birds here, and my favourite was the wren, for in its appearance and its scolding, jerky, gesticulating ways it is precisely like our house-wren, though it has a richer and more powerful song than the English bird. On the other side of the hedge was the potrero, or paddock, where a milch-cow with two or three horses were kept. The manservant, whose ...
— The Purple Land • W. H. Hudson
... had been a gliding flight of the automobile became, suddenly, a more or less uneven and jerky progress, accompanied by violent explosions. At the first of these Honora, in alarm, leaped to her feet. And the machine, after what seemed an heroic attempt to continue, came to a dead stop. They were on the outskirts of a village; children coming home from school ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... and the electric street lamps were lit round the pedestal of the Spanish Duke. The organisation of the town was jerky, and often the lights would come on when it was daylight and often disappear when it was dark. Where Germans had been there were always electric light and telephones. No matter how sparse the furniture ...
— The Happy Foreigner • Enid Bagnold
... was even producing her effects with unwonted freedom. Was she not, indeed, too free, too fluent, for perfect naturalness? And was not Dorset, to whom his glance had passed by a natural transition, too jerkily wavering between the same extremes? Dorset indeed was always jerky; but it seemed to Selden that tonight each vibration swung him farther ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... his head thrust forward to catch every word of the story which the other continued to pour out in nervous, jerky sentences and lowered voice. ...
— Three John Silence Stories • Algernon Blackwood
... pipers were pipin' an' the Wee People was dancin', an' while they was dancin' they was singin' like this: 'Monday an' Tuesday—an' Monday an' Tuesday—an' Monday an' Tuesday'—an' it sounded all jerky and bad. 'That's a terrible poor song,' says the humpy, speakin' out plain. 'What's that?' says the faeries, stoppin' their dance an' gatherin' round him. ''Tis mortal poor music ye are making' says the humpy ag'in. 'Can ye improve it any?' asked the faeries. 'I can that,' says ...
— The Primrose Ring • Ruth Sawyer
... away, through the passages, down the stairs, with a jerky step, holding Clarisse under the arm, as he might have held a lay-figure, supporting her, carrying her almost. A court-yard, another ...
— The Crystal Stopper • Maurice LeBlanc
... by the window, came forward and welcomed him. Glory held his hand with her long hand-clasp and looked steadfastly into his eyes. His face twitched and her own blushed deeply, and then she talked in a nervous and jerky way, reproaching him ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... went to a cupboard, opened it, and picked out a bottle which he brought forth. He moved and did everything in jerky gestures, always incomplete; he never quite stretched out his arm, nor quite put out his legs; nor made any broad and definite movements. His ideas seemed to be like his actions; he suggested them, promised them, sketched them, hinted at ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... whether it be the brush hewa of the Supai or the stone pueblo of the Hopi. They gather the pinon nuts and grind them into meal. They crush the corn into meal, and thresh and winnow the beans, and dry the pumpkin for winter use. They cut the meat into strips and cure it into jerky. They dry the grapes and peaches. They garner the acorns and store them in huge baskets of their own weaving. They shear the sheep, and wash, dye, spin, and weave the wool into marvelous blankets. They cut ...
— I Married a Ranger • Dama Margaret Smith
... agreeable companion, and laid aside the respectful tone and manner with which she had hitherto treated Miss Trevor, till the old lady began to feel uneasy in her turn, and her manner and speech became more queer, jerky, and ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... Then another. Two rushed together, locked in each other's grip, desperately fighting because of some crazy, deranged thought-impulse. They swayed and tore at each other until both wilted and sank inert. Another tottered with jerky steps to the edge of the roof and plunged headlong, crashing with a great metal clatter to the stone paving of ...
— Astounding Stories, July, 1931 • Various
... branches were littered about the square and heaped thick under the trees. The brick walls of many of the houses round were pitted and pocked and scarred by the shell fragments. The face of one house was marked by a huge splash, with solid center and a ragged-edged outline of radiating jerky rays, reminding one immediately of a famous ink-maker's advertisement. The bricks had taken the impression of the explosion's splash exactly as paper would take the ink's. Practically every window in the square ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... remained stationary after it had risen a few inches from its bed, but the other end, which was nearest us, went up and up, pushed by some screwjack arrangement that lifted it with slow, jerky movements till it was nearly upright. The moonlight fell upon the under surface that was turned toward us, and we understood the manner in which Leith's friends had arranged for us to make our exit from this world. The bottom ...
— The White Waterfall • James Francis Dwyer
... Varin, in a rough, jerky voice that reminded me of his brother, "on the contrary, it was your ...
— The Extraordinary Adventures of Arsene Lupin, Gentleman-Burglar • Maurice Leblanc
... Oxford and elsewhere might have been justified in describing the imperative duty of work as the theme of many an hour of strenuous idleness, and the superiority of golden silence over silver speech as the text of endless bursts of jerky rapture, while a too constant invective against cant had its usual effect of developing cant with a difference. To the incorrigibly sentimental all this was sheer poison, which continues tenaciously in the system. Others of robuster character ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... "I'll give him an old cry we used to have on the moor, when we were boys;" and directly after, sounding distant and strange, and as if it could not possibly have been given by his companion, there rang out a peculiar low piping whistle, followed by a short jerky note ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... Billy's questionings, that dark-skinned individual had at first betrayed abyssmal ignorance of all save the virtues of stuffed crocodiles, but convinced at last that this was no trap, but a genuine situation from which he could profit, his greed overcame his native caution, and through the aid of his jerky English and Billy's jagged Arabic a certain measure of confidence ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... greeting, and Smoke's heart went out to the man in ready liking. "Just in time for a snack. There's coffee in the pot, a couple of cold flapjacks, and some jerky." ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... did so, picked up a letter lying on his seat and glanced at the writing. He gave a start that was visible even to the watchers at the other side of the road, then plucked it open with nervous, jerky movements. He glanced quickly through it and sprang uncontrollably to his feet, his face ...
— Two Daring Young Patriots - or, Outwitting the Huns • W. P. Shervill
... the present day is towards short, snappy, pithy sentences which rivet the attention of the reader. They adopt as their motto multum in parvo (much in little) and endeavor to pack a great deal in small space. Of course the extreme of brevity is to be avoided. Sentences can be too short, too jerky, too brittle to withstand the test of criticism. The long sentence has its place and a very important one. It is indispensable in argument and often is very necessary to description and also in introducing ...
— How to Speak and Write Correctly • Joseph Devlin
... triangular figure (Fig. 2) that may be managed without fear of displacing the parts. The whole is laid upon bands of straw designed to bring out the sounds and render them stronger and purer. The sounds are produced by striking the pieces of wood with a couple of small hammers. They are short and jerky, and, as they cannot be prolonged, nothing but pieces possessing a quick rhythm can be executed upon the instrument. Dances, marches, variations, etc., are played upon it by preference, and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 488, May 9, 1885 • Various
... because he heard the two talking in low tones. He understood the tongue of the dusky miscreants, but though he listened closely, could not catch the meaning of a word that passed between them. Their sentences were of the short, jerky character common to all American Indians, accompanied by a peculiar grunting, which helped to ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... little, her hands still tightly clenched, breathing through half parted lips in short, quick, jerky inhalations like dry sobs. ...
— The Miracle Man • Frank L. Packard
... clouds. We were soon getting our breakfast, which always consisted of tea, followed by pemmican. We soaked our biscuits in both. Then we set to work to dig out the sledges and tent, a big job taking several hours. At last we got started. In that jerky way in which I was still managing to jot a few sentences down each night as a record, ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... Sabbath. saber know, learn, find out. sabroso, -a tasty, delicious, palatable. sacro, -a holy, sacred. sacudido, -a harsh, jerky. sacudir shake, shake off, strike. sagrado, -a sacred, holy. Salamanca pr. n. f. Salamanca. salir come out, go out, get out, emerge, issue, turn out, appear, show up; —— de leave, get out. saltar(se) jump, spring, flash. saludar salute, ...
— El Estudiante de Salamanca and Other Selections • George Tyler Northup
... enclosure in the movable prison, and the dignity of the march was disturbed by the words of command from the Canon Obrero, who, in scarlet robes with a staff in his hand, directed the procession, reproving the pilots and those who pushed the car inside for their jerky ...
— The Shadow of the Cathedral • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... enormously pleased at this mark of confidence, but he merely gave one of his jerky little nods and walked along solemnly beside his brilliant associate. In his loyalty for M. Paul this tough old veteran would have allowed himself to be cut into small pieces, but he would have spluttered ...
— Through the Wall • Cleveland Moffett
... voice must not be jerky. Here we must keep jealous watch over ourselves. The entire interest of diction arises from a fusion of tones. The tones of the voice are sentient beings, who love, hold converse, follow each other and blend in ...
— Delsarte System of Oratory • Various
... drive fast, and while the horses trotted rapidly along the Rue Royale and the boulevards, she told what had happened to Nana in jerky, breathless sentences. ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... when sitting up in bed, he may feel giddy and tend to fall, usually towards the side opposite to that on which the abscess is situated. The head and neck are retracted, the pulse is slow and weak, and the temperature subnormal. There is frequent yawning, and the speech is slow, syllabic, and jerky. There may be optic neuritis and blindness. There is sometimes unilateral or even bilateral spastic paralysis of the limbs from pressure on the medulla oblongata. The respiration may assume the Cheyne-Stokes character, occasionally being interrupted for a ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... struck around him. One seared his thigh. Owing, however, either to sheer good fortune or to his jerky ascent, he reached the top of the ladder without a ...
— Bloom of Cactus • Robert Ames Bennet
... is ten miles from camp, and Faye met me there with an ambulance. I was glad enough to get away from that old stage. It was one of the jerky, bob-back-and-forth kind that pitches you off the seat every five minutes. The first two or three times you bump heads with the passenger sitting opposite, you can smile and apologize with some grace, but after a while your hat will not stay in place and your head becomes sensitive, and finally, ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe
... jerky sentences, related what had been done and said. Phil leaned against the rail ...
— The Circus Boys On the Mississippi • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... black eyes, which darted from one object to another in a jerky, inquisitive way. Her scarlet lips parted over white, even teeth, but her lower lip hung, and her half-open mouth gave her an air of ignorance, ...
— Patty and Azalea • Carolyn Wells
... like a doll. The boy looked very handsome, in a black velvet suit with lace ruffles at the wrists and knees, and long white stockings with black slippers. He was clever, too, in assuming the character, and walked with stiff, jerky strides, like a mechanical doll that ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... in a queer, jerky way, and Bunting felt surprised—rather put out. Ellen wasn't exactly what you'd call a lively, jolly woman, but when things were going well—as now—she was generally equable enough. He supposed she was still resentful of the way he had spoken to her about ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... such a wonderful young man?" snapped a jerky little voice. "Johnny Gamble? You bet ...
— Five Thousand an Hour - How Johnny Gamble Won the Heiress • George Randolph Chester
... again, but only for a moment; then, drawing himself up, he hurried toward the door with a jerky step. ...
— The Teeth of the Tiger • Maurice Leblanc
... outstretched fingers—(first and second)—and the ball is securely held by the muscle at the ball of the thumb. By bending the first and second fingers that hold the cup, its lip is brought in close proximity to the secreted ball. By a sharp or jerky movement forward to place the cup on the ground, and at the same time releasing the muscle of the ball of the thumb, the woollen ball naturally finds its place under the cup and the deception is ...
— Indian Conjuring • L. H. Branson
... Tillott has not his persuasive powers!" she thought; Mr. Tillott's eloquence being, in fact, of a very limited order, chiefly exhibiting itself in little jerky questions about the spiritual and temporal welfare of his humble parishioners—questions which, in the vernacular language of agricultural labourers, "put a chap's ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon
... just under the ceiling, a tiny door fly open, and emerging thence a grotesque, miniature man, holding, uplifted in his hand, a hammer of size proportionate to his own figure. Mr. Norton sat motionless, while this small specimen proceeded, with a jerky gait and many bobbing grimaces, across a wire stretched to the opposite corner of the room, where stood a tall, ebony clock. When within a short distance of the clock another tiny door in its side flew open; the little man entered and struck deliberately with the hammer the hour of ...
— Adele Dubois - A Story of the Lovely Miramichi Valley in New Brunswick • Mrs. William T. Savage
... muscles become impotent, but the involuntary ones lose in effectiveness. Digestion is partly or wholly suspended. "Scared stiff" is a popular and truthful expression. The bodily rhythm is lost, the breathing becomes jerky and the heart beats out ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... spectacle of the pursuit. The hunt was up. Short of throwing his head up and baying, the stout young man behaved exactly as a bloodhound in similar circumstances would have conducted itself. He broke into a jerky gallop, attended by his self-appointed associates; and, considering that the young man was so stout, that the messenger boy considered it unprofessional to hurry, that the shop girl had doubts as to whether sprinting ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... in the air but over it now was draped the net, the rocks in its fringes weighing it down in spite of its jerky attempts to rise. In its struggles to be free, it might almost have led the watcher to believe that it had intelligence of a sort. Now the mermen were coming out of the stream, picking up rocks as they advanced. And a hail of stones flew through the air, while ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... was at home, still scrubbing and cleaning. The front of the great house was in order, with even the fires laid on all the hearths ready for lighting. Now he was scrubbing the back stairs. His brush bumped noisily against the steps, and the sound of its scouring was nearly drowned by the jerky tune which the old fellow sung through his nose as ...
— The Gate of the Giant Scissors • Annie Fellows Johnston
... came the Scarecrow mounted on the Sawhorse, and the people cheered him almost as loudly as they did their lovely Ruler. Behind him stalked with regular, jerky steps, the famous machine-man called Tik-tok, who had been wound up by Dorothy for the occasion. Tik-tok moved by clockwork, and was made all of burnished copper. He really belonged to the Kansas girl, who had much respect for his ...
— Dorothy and the Wizard in Oz • L. Frank Baum.
... no notion, Miss Arundel, that—that—of—this," Hudson began in a dry, jerky whisper. "Believe me, I wouldn't 'a' thought of intrudin'. I ordered the picture there from your father a fortnight ago, and this was the day I was to come and give it a last looking-over before I came through with the cash, see? I hadn't heard he was sick even, much less"—he cleared his throat—"gone ...
— Hidden Creek • Katharine Newlin Burt
... scrub trotted a huge, shaggy, black thing, all head and shoulders, with body slanting back abruptly to a pair of weak hindquarters. Down the slope it ran in quick, noiseless, jerky steps; the yearling turned his head, still munching, ears cocked forward. And suddenly the monster rushed at him with a squeal, and the yearling shrieked and fled, chased clear ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... supported by a subsidy from its own writers. Men whose writing commands high payment will contribute to the Free Press sometimes for small fees, usually for nothing; but, at any rate, always well below their market prices. But contribution of that kind is always precarious, and, if I may use the word, jerky. Meanwhile, it does not fill a paper. It is true that the level of writing in the Free Press is very much higher than in the Official Press. To compare the Notes in "The New Age," for instance, with the Notes in the "Spectator" is to ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc
... brought, took a quick resolution. She hurried to the little town to seek her queen. The matter was not easy, for suspicion rested heavily upon her; but her determination removed all obstacles, and the queen, profoundly moved by Walpurga's jerky explanation and passionate appeal, and stirred to the very depths of her soul by Irma's heroism, demanded to be led at once to her. She was followed in a short while by the king, to whom the whole incident had ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol. I • Various
... laid an imploring hand on Flora Clark's arm when she manifested symptoms of rising and interrupting the reading. Flora was getting angry—I knew by the way her forehead was knitted and by the jerky way she sewed. Poor Harriet Jameson looked more and more distressed. I was sure she saw Mrs. White holding back Flora, and knew just what it meant. Harriet was sitting quite idle with her little hands in her lap; we had set her to ...
— The Jamesons • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... something of a flabby sort in Mullally's nature that made Henry instinctively angry with him: his vague features, his weak, wandering eyes, peering from behind large glasses, his tow-coloured hair that seemed to have "washed-out," and above all, his squeaky voice that piped on one jerky note.... ...
— Changing Winds - A Novel • St. John G. Ervine
... folks.' The unfortunate tramp, who in the meanwhile had managed to got on to his feet again, made no attempt to get away; probably he thought he would stand but a poor chance. But the man in the shirt had partly recovered his power of speech, and was now blurting out jerky, ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... the crack of the baseboard, in a corner of Johnnie Green's chamber, Chirpy Cricket saw the gleam of the candle. And he wondered whether it might be a relation of Freddie Firefly. It seemed to have a trick of moving about in a jerky fashion, as if it didn't know where it was going and didn't greatly care, so long as ...
— The Tale of Chirpy Cricket • Arthur Scott Bailey
... French window and looked out of the open pane in its centre. It was as she feared. The light streaming from the room showed her Marion standing half-way across the lawn, looking up at the top storey of the house. As the ray found her she lowered her head and made a jerky, embarrassed movement in the direction of Ellen, who, feeling merciless, continued to hold back the curtain. Marion drew her cloak collar up about her ears and stepped aside into the darkness. Ellen went and sat down by the fire. From something in Marion's bearing, ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... you want some more money. Write to the office, not to the house. I only wish you had asked me before this happened. I've been pretty successful, at least in business; but that's not everything." He paused and then went on, in short, jerky sentences. "Don't marry a saint, Jimmy. They're better to watch than to live with. Your sister never forgives anything, and that's a big mistake. It makes life hard sometimes. I suppose I'm getting a bit old, and I feel things. The ...
— People of Position • Stanley Portal Hyatt
... perspiration to be seen. She had not even taken her cap off, a black cap trimmed with green ribbons turned partly yellow. And she stood perfectly upright in front of the ironing-table, which was too high for her, sticking out her elbows, and moving her iron with the jerky evolutions of a puppet. On ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola
... from the table, his long legs stretched before him, peering curiously at Richard and myself over black-rimmed glasses and then, with equal interest, turning back to the ash of a long cigar and talking drama with the famous jerky, nasal voice but always with a marvellous poise and convincing authority. He took a great liking to Richard in those days, sent him a church-warden's pipe that he had used as Corporal Brewster, and made much of him later when my ...
— Adventures and Letters • Richard Harding Davis
... continued his stiff and jerky circling of the ape-man, much after the manner that you have noted among dogs when a strange canine comes among them, it occurred to Tarzan to discover if the language of his own tribe was identical with that of this other family, and so ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs |
